Bit of an awkward one to explain, we live on a new build, if you imagine a T junction , my garden ends at the bottom of the T, the house next doors garden runs down and the garden end is at the right of the T, my other neighbours garden ends at the left of the T,The centre of the T is a public right of way, even though it is over grown with nettles etc. good old barrets planning for you .On the house on the rights boundary there's a large oak, I say boundary as Barrett found fit to put his fence up so that the tree is stuck in the middle of his fence, as if the fence is cutting it in two,,if you can follow that.

The main trunk is like that , but theres a large trunk coming off it thats extends to the left, some of the branches on this over hang both my garden and also the house to the left of the T,We were having our garden done by a so called landscaper, I mentioned the branches hanging over my garden which had damaged my garden shed roof, ripping all the felt off,Anyway, he said he could cut them off, so I went out form the day,when I got home, he had cut the branches right back to the trunk having climbed the tree, and the neighbour came out and asked him to please climb down.Where do I stand with this.I checked with the council in the past,and they tolled me that the tree was not their responsibility

It always helps others to understand if you provide a diagram - assuming the layout is relevant to the question, which doesn't seem to be the case here? I think you are describing a situation (correct me if I am wrong) where you have a large tree left in the middle of some Barrett fencing and your enthusiastic gardener has chopped a lot of it back.

The basic rule of law is that you are allowed to cut back anything that hangs over your side of a boundary. Technically the branches etc belong to the owner, on whose land the tree stands, and you are supposed to offer them back to the owner. He/she can take the cuttings back as their property or tell you to dispose of them yourself.

I will see if I can get some photos up on my photobucket to link to, but yes more or less, the tree is half in some one else's garden and a no mans/persons land, yes I know there is no such thing as Norman's land.And yes he has cut the branches right back to the trunk rather than just to my boundary fence.

Ok, see if I can explain it a bit better, the tree trunk is half way in my next doors garden and a public foot path, which is not accessible due to major overgrowth, next doors fence runs up to the middle of the trunk then continues on the other side, if you imagine the fence cutting right through the trunk you will get an idea.I rang the council to find out about the tree as well as sending them a photo and a google image of it from above so they could see the layout of the gardens etc.They told me it was nothing to do with them it was the builders of the house who were responsible for the tree,Now my house was built by barrets, next door was persimmon , and the other house was wimpy,(see T junction above) and none want to take responsibility for it,Since the tree is half way in my next doors garden where do I stand, I asked a landscaper who was doing some work on our garden to trim back the tree to our boundary fence as it was damaging one of our garden sheds roof,I went out for the day and when I came home, he had cut the branches right back to the trunk, past my boundary fence, which next door who has half the trunk in their garden were not to happy,Where do I stand with this, I asked for the tree branches to be trimmed, but the landscaper took it right back.Could next door take action against me, Also since the council said that it was nothing to do with them, could their still be a preservation order on it ? Which would make it even worse because it was taken back to trunk.

Which side of the trunk was the branch on, the neighbours garden side or the footpath side? Still kind of struggling to picture the layout in relation to you, your neighbour, the tree and the footpath. A diagram would help. If the tree is protected either by virtue of tpo or conservation area then the gardener should not gave cut it at all without applying to the local authority.

kipper wrote:Could next door take action against me, Also since the council said that it was nothing to do with them, could their still be a preservation order on it ? Which would make it even worse because it was taken back to trunk.

Any action would be for losses sustained, they would be suing for the extra, over and above what you were entitled to cut off. What value would that have?

Did you specifically ask about a TPO? If you didn't the bad is on you.

kipper wrote:Could next door take action against me, Also since the council said that it was nothing to do with them, could their still be a preservation order on it ? Which would make it even worse because it was taken back to trunk.

Any action would be for losses sustained, they would be suing for the extra, over and above what you were entitled to cut off. What value would that have?

Did you specifically ask about a TPO? If you didn't the bad is on you.

To be honest I didn't ask the person I had an email reply from, I didn't even think about a tpo at the time. I took it that as I had sent them a photo and a diagram of it,and they said it was nothing to do with them it was down to,the builders of the houses to sort anything to do with it, I thought it was ok.As you say, bad on me.I can't draw a diagram at the moment, as on my daughters ipad, as I'm about to install a new hard drive in my mac , as the old one does, so,as soon as I have done it I will be able to draw one.

Builders try not to sort out difficult issues but sidestep them. Sounds that way here. Will be interesting when we can see - diagram Seriously, can't you just hand draw post-card size then scan it in? Why this iPad/Mac/hard drive sob story?

arsie wrote:Builders try not to sort out difficult issues but sidestep them. Sounds that way here. Will be interesting when we can see - diagram Seriously, can't you just hand draw post-card size then scan it in? Why this iPad/Mac/hard drive sob story?

I can scan a diagram , but our printer is not an air printer, so I can't connect to it from the ipad, and haven't downloaded an app for it, remember its my daughters who is nine years old, and besides I don't know how any one can use these damned things I am inserting the drive in the mac as I type, not at the same time obviously

When I had one surgeon out to look at the tree he did go on about builders don't think about thinks like this when they stick up new builds,In saying that, when I first rang him, he did say that he would ring the council if I didn't mind to check, which he did, and when he called round I asked about it and he said it was all fine, whether he asked about a tpo I don't know, but he was a Fully qualified surgeon.

Once I have done the diagram (don't hold you breath) you will see the layout, one of the other houses had over hanging branches cut by another qualified tree surgeon without checking about a tpo, as I was going to use them but chose to use the landscaper instead, wish I had gone with the surgeon I was going to go with now.

kipper wrote:If the diagram is in gif, jpg, jpeg, png or bmp format then you should be able to upload it to photobucket from the ipad and post the link on here.

I have no drawing app that I know of on my daughters ipad, I should have recloned from my external drive to my new drive tomorrow ....spent the day making swords and shields with my daughters for school.